


and it's you she loves

by herwhiteknight



Category: RWBY
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Light Angst, very brief mention of goatman / blake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 23:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19936384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herwhiteknight/pseuds/herwhiteknight
Summary: “Tell me about her,” Ilia says gently, keeping her eyes on Blake’s profile and feeling love swell in her own heart. She remembers her own words once,I wanted you to look at me that way,and can’t find the truth in them anymore.





	and it's you she loves

**Author's Note:**

> bumbleby week? whoops i uh. i dont know her..
> 
> please forgive any errors, i wrote this in one sitting and didnt edit, so

Ilia remembers how it felt to fall in love for the first time. She remembers catching sight of molten gold and midnight silk and just dropping gravity out from underneath, the weight of the world taken and scattered. She remembers it felt like breathing for the first time, and dying - but all at once. Rushing and stopping and lifting and falling and burying and unearthing and _living_. All at once. 

Blake Belladonna. She’d never forget it. She didn’t realize that there would eventually be more than one reason she’d never lose track of the memory of her face the first time they’d ever locked eyes.

She remembers the first mission they’d been assigned as a pair - a simple scouting thing, perimeter observation of some organization. Not much action. Ilia had spent most of the time staring at Blake than at the objective, and if Blake hadn’t been so determined to prove herself as a useful member - to prove herself to _him_ \- she would’ve seen for sure. Maybe would’ve laughed ( _gods,_ Ilia would’ve loved to hear that, would’ve loved it even more if she was the one who made her make such a sound), would’ve commented something about how Ilia was acting like a cliche from one of her novels. If she would’ve noticed Ilia’s attention at all.

But they’d returned from the scout mere few hours later, nothing earth-shattering to report, of course - as Sienna had planned, probably. New recruits, new tests, it all didn’t matter. But that didn’t stop Adam’s glowing praise, the way he lavished attention upon Blake. Ilia had hung back, long since been dismissed by the actual _command_ and just watched Blake blush, tap a toe against the dirt. Soaking it all up like a desert flower too burnt by the sun.

 _Look at me like that._ It was the first time she realized she was in for it deep, watching Adam’s hand drift a little too low on Blake’s back as he guided her back to Sienna’s personal tent. She smoldered red, stiff-backed and furious as Blake ducked through the tent flap. And Adam had looked back at her and he _knew_ \- there was an infuriating and even more ugly _leer_ stretched across his face as the cloth fell back, engulfing them both. He just _knew_ she was in love with her.

Ilia remembers red for the rest of that night. Red that kept her awake. And red that wouldn’t let go.

She remembers the first night she spent alone without Blake in her periphery. Adam’s furious shouting, trees felled in the distance and terrified flocks losing their homes was enough to keep satisfaction hanging around her periphery. _She’s away from you_ , she thought over and over again. _She’s away from you. She’s away from you. She’s away._

Her next - _she left me_. 

_She left me. She left me. She’s left me. She left._

They’d joked once, something stupid they’d come up with during an off-day around camp - it’s something Ilia struggles to remember who came up with in the first place, as if assigning the joke to either of them would somehow make it lose the spontaneous laughter it’d so often created.

“If I’d create a statue of myself,” Blake had demonstrated once, delicately entrancing fingers spinning a dust vial around in her palm, “and left it somewhere, it wouldn’t disappear, right?”

Ilia could only nod, at that point, lost in the endless movement. 

“How long do you think it would take Adam to notice that we’ve left the camp?”

Ilia wanted, wanted so _desperately,_ to get caught up on the idea of _we,_ an escape where it was only her and Blake, nothing more, just freedom and the girl she - but there _he_ always was. “He wouldn’t fall for that stupid idea,” Ilia had said aggressively, harsher than she’d meant to, only hoping to shatter Blake’s illusion of Adam’s grandiose nature. 

Blake hadn’t noticed, flickering a glance to the interior of the camp behind her, gaze shifting to far-away and daydreams and Ilia, for once, had to look away. “You’re right. He’s so smart, I wouldn’t ever be able to outwit him.”

But she’d had. She’d broken from his control, simultaneously thwarting one of his first major operations under Sienna’s command and taking her life back onto her own path. And taking herself away from Ilia in the process. Collateral casualties.

“Do you think anyone would notice if I’d just left these statues around?”

In the end, they’d never gotten the chance to try. But when Ilia hadn’t an answer back then, too out of breath with laughter to respond, she knew now. 

_Do you think anyone would notice if I’d just left?_

The imprints Blake had carved into her heart, the empty holes and created crevices were answer enough.

Ilia remembers seeing Blake for the first time after it all, and it was like she hadn’t even sealed the cracks at all. Resentment poured fourth like a hemorrhage, and she shot to kill. _Wanted_ to. But Blake moved too quickly out of the range of her gun, was too quick and clever like she’d always been during their old sparring matches. That’s what Ilia told herself. It wasn’t that she was hesitating too long on the trigger, or that she was always seeming to aim just slightly off-center of her intent. No. It was Blake’s fault. As it always had been.

She remembers injuring the boy she was with, because she couldn’t bear to hurt Blake but she still needed an escape, and remembers hearing, _“No, not again”,_ just before she’d disappeared into the night. 

She remembers incomparable joy, still smarting from aura-absorbed wounds that Blake herself had caused - hadn’t ever wanted to cause - as Blake walked down, put a hand on her shoulder. As molten gold shone bright like a reforging of redemption and forgiveness shone from her smile. Blake had changed, Ilia could see that just from the way she’d been carrying herself since their first reencounter. She’d changed, but the girl she’d first fell in love with -

_“I’d notice Blake. If you’d left a statue behind. I’d figure it out in a heartbeat.”_

_“That’s why I’m not going to leave you, Ilia. Not ever.”_

_Oh._ She was still there. And Ilia would follow her wherever.

Which happened to be - “Ilia?” Blake snaps a finger in front of her friend’s face. “Hey. You in there somewhere?”

Ilia blinks, pink skipping across her freckles in a wave. “Oh, uh! Yeah,” she grins, leaning against the railing at the train platform. “Just thinking about how far you’ve come.”

“You can’t give me all the credit,” Blake smiles, joining her and bumping her shoulder up against hers. “You’ve had quite the turn-around yourself, you know?”

Ilia glances sidelong at her, remembering the easiness. Remembering how easy it used to be to enjoy her company. Realizing that it is just as easy to fall back into it. “Not without your help,” Ilia counters simply. “You gave me a second option.” She falls silent for a long moment. Then, so quietly it nearly slips underneath the bustle of unaffected life, “I didn’t see anything but _him_ . I.. I _couldn’t_ see anything but him.”

Ilia knows Blake has heard her when she feels Blake stiffen next to her. But she isn’t held in paralysis for long, which was something Ilia was suspecting. “I’m not alone in that anymore,” she murmurs, her gaze tracking across the waiting passengers below them. Her eyes find an animated blonde figure, and even despite the distance, Ilia can feel the genuine emotion pouring forth. It’s incomparably softer to any look or emotion Blake had ever spared Adam.

“Tell me about her,” Ilia says gently, keeping her eyes on Blake’s profile and feeling love swell in her own heart. She remembers her own words once, _I wanted you to look at me that way_ , and can’t find the truth in them anymore.

Blake startles and Ilia hides a giggle. “I don’t know who you’re-”

“The blonde you can’t rip your eyes away from?” Ilia smirks, poking at Blake’s ribs good-naturedly, drawing a couple of playful swats out of her in response. Like old times. Except now, they’re both happier.

Blake clams up for just a moment before it ruptures out of her, the joy from her splitting grin healing up some of the cracks in Ilia’s heart along the way. “Yang,” she starts, but then suddenly stops, like no other words except her name could encompass everything that Yang was, everything that Yang meant to her. 

And it’s the sweetest sounds Ilia’s ever heard come from her lips. Because it makes her love her even more as she watches Blake stumble over words and emotions and memories trying to put Yang into an explainable box - and with it, her feelings. And Ilia realizes, even if Blake can’t put the simple words to it, that Blake _loves_ her. Blake loves every inch of her.

And when she meets Yang on the platform, just before the train is about to depart, Ilia can see why. She’s genuine, caring, strong. There’s comfort in her eyes, a softness to her smile. When they look at each other, the world shrinks to intimacy, a space in the cosmos filled just with their presence that surely must be invincible. Not like it was unbreakable, but that it had broken and woven determinedly back together and stubbornly made vows to never be severed ever again.

“You’re what she needs right now, Yang,” Ilia says with a soft grin. It’s absent of the jealousy that had once festered, the red that wouldn’t let go.

Yang falters at that, uncertainty flickering in her gaze. Ilia just grips tighter, reassuring. “I’ve known Blake a long time. Trust me,” she starts, opening her mouth to continue the words, but stops. Tilts her head and decides that she’ll let them figure that out for themselves. “Just give her time.”

The train whistle sounds and Yang’s younger sister shouts from the train, half-hanging out the window with her exasperated teammate clinging to her arm. Yang blinks, still looking unsure, but Ilia steps back and Blake takes her place, grabbing Yang’s hand and tugging her forward. 

Ilia watches her leave. And lets her go.


End file.
